


was there a reason?

by a_j_d_21



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Hurt TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), IRL Fic, Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Song Lyrics, Songfic, Your city gave me asthma, ventfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29851482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_j_d_21/pseuds/a_j_d_21
Summary: Wilbur didn't write Your City Gave Me AsthmaTommy did
Comments: 15
Kudos: 210





	was there a reason?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [realbigboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/realbigboy/gifts).
  * Inspired by [tommyinnit promts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29489568) by [realbigboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/realbigboy/pseuds/realbigboy). 



> uh trigger warnings? idk I don't think its too bad but there's some descriptions of hypochondria.  
> ly stay safe

Nobody knew, that was the craziest part of it all, nobody. Not his parents, not their friends, not any of the fans. The secret was theirs and theirs alone.

The songs weren't much for a while, not many people knew about them, they were really only for fans who were heavily obsessed with Wilbur, scouring the internet for any signs of him. They'd find the songs, sure, but they didn't know.

They were Tommy's.

He wrote them all in a span of a week. A lonely week, no streaming, no school, he barely left his room. He thought he had gotten over it. He _told himself_ he had gotten over months ago. He didn't care when it had happened. He knew it was supposed to mean something, it was supposed to hurt but it didn't. He ended it like it was nothing. He thought it was nothing. He _promised_ himself it was nothing.

He lied.

She meant more and more to him everyday she was gone, and it hurt. He loved her, so so so so much, so why couldn't he say it? Why didn't he say it. He was so fucking good at talking, and he couldn't say three little words that would make it all mean something. He had taken the inability as a sign but it was the wrong sign.

A text message, a fucking text message was all she got, though she begged for more. And they both had the audacity to go to school the next day and lock eyes silently in the hallway. Back then it meant nothing to him, but slowly he broke.

He broke and he broke and he broke until he hadn't done his college work in weeks, hadn't streamed or talked to his friends, even Tubbo got the cold shoulder as he spiraled. If his parents noticed something wrong, they didn't say anything. He never left his room anyway.

He had his guitar, still. His fucking lifeline, his great secret, always kept out of sight from camera. Music always felt to personal for him, too raw. He was supposed to make jokes, he was supposed to yell. He was a voice in a microphone and eyes in a camera to them.

His guitar was like another camera for him, he had mused. It watched him as his audience did. It praised him, it hurt him, it was there.

it was there for him when he finally found out. A dm from a friend, kinda fitting, he had supposed. She found someone new, someone better. He stared at their little faces side by side in the bubbles of his Instagram feed, watched them. Thought about her, thought about him to, sometimes a whole lot more. _Is he better than me_? ha.

He sat on his floor with his guitar the first night. First it was notes, hours and hours of plucking and chords, and finding ways to make the frequency in his fingers match the one in his chest, fueling him. His what? Anger? sorrow? Regret? He didn't know, it changed by the hour.

The songs weren't separate at first, they were a jumble of verses and melodies that made sense only in his mind alone. Notes and words and thoughts were one as tears flowed down his face. _there's a reason,_ _I figured out what could move me, I could go away, lovers colleagues best friends, I think I've made my choice, only serves to mock me, I don't think I want to leave you._

He wrote the whole album that first night, though he didn't know it yet. He played and he sung and he scribbled words on bits of math worksheets he found around him till his voice gave out, and the sun rose on his back in his window with the blinds open and he fell asleep right there, in a jumble of paper and feelings, with his guitar laid out beside him, still unsatisfied with what he had given it, begging more from the exhausted boy whose soul it held in its hands.

He woke up hours later, with the sun no longer visible in his window, and began again.

seven songs

jubilee line.

Tommy didn't live in London, but he'd been there many times. He always hated it, she loved it. They had gone there for a day trip once together, riding the train there alone. He hated city life and smog and the way the faint drizzle seemed to mix with the pollution in the air. It made him cough.

But that day was easier with her, they fell giggling into an ice cream shop where they both got cups of vanilla, hers with peanut butter, and his with m&m's. That was when she said it for the first time. Tommy could almost hear her heart pounding from across the table, and she looked up at him shyly, and she said the three words he had wanted to hear, had _needed_ _to hear_ , from anyone. He opened his mouth to say it back when his throat closed, he took a bite of his ice cream. They sat in silence.

_Your wasting your time_

The rain poured harder as they made their way back to the train station that night. He hated the city more. The faces of pedestrians looked at him angrily and he held her arm under the little umbrella. Of course they were angry. They deserved to be angry. They had to be angry at him. Why didn't he say it? Why didn't he _say it?_ He meant to he swore he did. He loved her. He loved her. He loved her. He _loved her._

Did he?

_I'm wasting mine?_

Was he?

The train pulled as they sat in silence on the bench, staring blankly at the tracks. Tommy's eyes raised to look at it, before glancing at the crowd surrounding them.

Most had their eyes downwards, the tracks. Some looked relieved when the train came to a stop _._ A man stood in a blue hoodie a few meters from him. His eyebrows were creased, but he sighed.

Tommy let out a breath too.

_There's a reason London puts barriers on the tube line_

Saline Solution.

Tommy was sick a lot as a kid. And it wasn't like the other kids, whose nose would run and stomach would hurt as they begged their mom to let them still go to the park, to sleepover, to be disappointed when they were wrangled into bed and firmly told to rest.

Tommy's illnesses left him shaky and lightheaded and nauseous. They left him passed out at the bottom of stairs. They left him unable to think straight and see clearly. And while he never had a fever to prove to himself, he would spend days unable to get out of bed.

_I think this time I'm dying_

He finally went to the doctor when he was eleven, and it was so easy. Low blood pressure. He received a bottle of pills and a warning to drink more water. The symptoms went away.

It couldn't be that easy, it couldn't. He'd know for so fucking long, he was gonna die. He felt it on the bad days when he couldn't find his balance. _He's gonna die._ He felt it on the good days with his friends when he ran and payed basketball in the park. He reminded himself, so he didn't get to attached to the feeling. _He's gonna die._ Even after the diagnosis, after the medicine, it was always on the back of his mind. _He's gonna die. Its gonna kill him._ It was on his mind that day in the ice cream shop with her. Was that why he couldn't meet her eyes? Was that why he couldn't say it back?

_Reasoning for thinking I've got fucking rabies or something_

He spent most of his nights online, clicking away on symptom after symptom. He had osteosarcoma? Leukemia? Fucking Tuberculosis? Lung disease, heart disease, brain tumor. He had something he knew it. They hadn't found it yet, they wouldn't find it till it was too late. _He's gonna die._

Tommy knew it was irrational, he knew it. But he couldn't stop. She had told him once. She said words that wormed into his mind and begged him to let him guard down. "You think too much Tommy. Your thoughts are gonna kill you before you give anything else the chance."

He turned away. _He's gonna die._ He wasn't gonna get too close. He wasn't going to break her heart when he was gone.

_I think I've lost my mind_

Since I Saw Vienna.

Two weeks after Tommy ended it with her, he started running. His mom suggested it actually. Bought him new shoes in everything. Told him it would take his mind off things.

It didn't

It brought him something else though.

He ran everyday, rain or shine, through the trails by his house or through the streets of Nottingham, or on the sidewalks down the blocks and blocks of identical looking houses. 

He knew he should've started slower, or worked the distance up gradually, but once he started he couldn't stop. He'd sprint for as long as he could in one direction, while his lungs burned and his legs ached and he ignored funny looks in the street from his frantic movements. It was a desperate chase. What was he chasing? He couldn't tell. He couldn't tell

_as horizon's my target_

Was that his target? Some days, he felt like it. Running gave him something. A new sort of pain that had nothing to do with the one trapped in him. In _her._ The pain he left in both of them. The trail he always caused. Running felt like flames in his lungs. Not much had changed. Maybe now he was dying?

He like to imagine he ran across the whole damn world, like he was traveling to somewhere he'd never come back from, like if he just kept fucking moving he'd never have to see the look in her eyes again. The look that told him he had broken her just as much as he'd broken himself.

_If I keep on moving and never lose sight of it_

He ran and he ran and he ran until he felt near collapse and stopped to sit a while. He'd call a cab or get his mom to pick him or sometimes he'd just spend the hours walking home, defeated. He couldn't get far enough.

He got a stress fracture in his left ankle a few months later and stopped. He couldn't get far enough.

_The distance is futile_

Losing face.

Tommy didn't get angry much, but he could've burned down a city when he got the text. She had found someone new, she had fucking replaced him. 

Subconsciously, he knew he had no right to be angry. He let her go, he couldn't say it, he couldn't tell her the truth. He couldn't tell her he loved her when it mattered most and now she found someone who could. That wasn't her fault. That wasn't even the other boys fault. 

But it felt good. it felt so sickeningly good to finally blame someone. Someone other than himself. That's all he'd done for so so long, and now someone could fill that empty space in his mind that whispered to him at night. Whispered that he could've fixed things. Could've said sorry. Could've said any of the right things.

Tommy spent an embarrassing amount of time stalking him online. Pouring over pictures from his page, her page, their friends page. They became friends? Friends? They chatted online in the guise of homework help, conversation turned to video games. The guy thought Tommy's channel was pretty cool. 

"No hard feeling?" he had asked one night as they played minecraft together before he had to start streaming.

"None," he lied through his teeth. "That was a long time ago, we're over it."

_Oh I don't know what I'm to do_

Tommy _never_ went to parties. Never. It's not like he was never invited. He was pretty popular. He just wasn't interested. He didn't know why he agreed that night. Half an hour in, he'd wanted to leave. But he didn't.

He'd woken up the next day inexplicably in his own bed, with a pounding headache and a pit in his stomach. Did he? No. He wouldn't. He had checked his phone as the sun continued to rise in his dim room.

_I was gonna wait for you_

_is he better than me?_

_Can he smoke more?_

_Can he fuck more?_

_Are you good enough to be his wife?_

_I've lost all meaning_

_I don't care._

_Can he break you?_

All the messages marked read, and the late night minecraft talks ended, and he shut off his phone for a week, unawares of the anxious texts from Wilbur and Tubbo and his other friends, pretending that somehow if he never looked at them again, he never sent them either.

_I'm losing face_

Your Sister was Right.

He shut down at some point after. He left his room only for meals, and even then not all of them. His parents would knock on his door to see if he was alright, and he'd wave them off. He was busy. 

He was, really.

He spent more time streaming that time than he had before, more time editing. His grades had never been higher. He laughed and screamed and insulted his friends cause that's what he did. That's who he was. His audience was grateful for the extra content, and his parents were grateful for the newfound fervor for school, and Tommy was grateful for anything that filled up his head and his hands, gave him something to do. No one asked questions cause nothing had changed. Nothing. Only Wilbur seemed to notice the clouds behind his eyes, messaging him after streams with concerns that he waved off adamantly.

He eventually left it alone

_I use everyone I ever meet_

If his chest fell when the camera turned off, or his eyes closed in fear when he finally shut down his computer, no one had to know.

There was one memory bouncing in his head for weeks. A phone call, a voicemail really, that he never answered.

_Do you know what you did to my sister?_

_Do you know the pain you caused her when you dumped her?_

_You couldn't even say it to her face, now you want her back?_

_I saw the messages Tom_

_You've been nothing but a problem for her since you met._

_She cried over you even before all this bullshit_

_Leave her alone_

He filled in the blanks by himself that night with his guitar, letting something loose inside him that he never could before. Brutally honest. Honest? His friends wouldn't agree. He didn't think that mattered very much.

_abuse those I love_

Tommy sat alone at night when he ran out of things to keep busy with. He was stuck with himself. Stuck with himself and his thoughts of her and the fucking tumors in his head and his lungs and bones and his blood that he couldn't get rid of! He couldn't get rid of it! Any of it! How was he supposed to when every little headache brought him to his knees? _He's gonna die._ When every thought of her ripped the fucking air from his lungs in one go. _He's gonna die._ Why didn't he say it? Why couldn't he say it! He loved her!

_we were built from the same dirt_

He never loved her

He realized that sitting cross-legged on his bed one night after ending a call with Wilbur.

He never loved her

Tommy never loved her. He was lonely.

_Your sister was right_

La Jolla.

He finally got over it. He did. He finally fucking did it. He stopped checking up on her. he stopped calling her. Tommy forgot most days it had even happened, that it was once a big deal for him.

Then he got the text. Bus ride home from school was quiet for once, most of the people gone. He sat in a seat alone with his headphones in his ears and his phone buzzed.

_Hey I know its been a while but I just want to talk to someone_

_How've you been Tommy?_

_That's good, school's been stressful for me too._

_Can I talk to you about something_

_I know you probably don't want to hear it but I have no one else to talk to_

_We broke up_

_Yeah, I'm alright._

_He said he liked her better._

_Thank you Tommy._

_His parents didn't like me anyway_

_I know you don't care but thank you for listening_

_you're a good friend_

He sat there, and he stared out the window. It should bring him joy. It should hurt him. He should be happy they're not together. He should be angry he hurt her. He should ask if they wanted to meet up. He should apologize. He should leave her alone. He should ignore her. He should be there for her.

He mostly just felt numb

_I could go away_

He had turned off his phone. The music faded out and he put his head against the glass, listening and feeling the bumps on the road. He shut his eyes.

_I've tried hard to love me too_

She tried harder. She had said it. It still felt like she was saying it.

Maybe one day he'd go to uni and he'd forget she'd ever existed. Maybe one day he'd leave this rainy country and he'd find a place she had never touched. He had never touched. A new place that neither of them had ruined yet.

_Maybe one day I'll live in La Jolla_

and maybe that'd be enough for him.

I'm Sorry Boris.

_even though I finished, I'm not quite done with it_

He never went back to London.

"Wilbur I know you're into music."

"Yeah, I am"

"I wrote.. well I wrote some songs?"

"Really Tommy? That's awesome. Can I hear them?"

He played them all on video call that night. One after the next after the next. Wilbur interjected a lot at first. With praise and light jabs and "oh why didn't you tell me you could play guitar?"s. But slowly he grew silent. and he simply sat and listened. By the time they got to your sister was right Tommy had tears on his face. By the time they finished La Jolla they were both crying.

They sat in silence for a moment once Tommy was done. Neither of them could bring themselves to break through the quiet. Wilbur was the first to dare.

"Are you, uh, gonna do anything with those songs? They sounded kinda personal."

"I don't know"

"It's alright if you don't.. But you need to know, it's also alright if you do."

"It's just, I want people to hear them. I _need_ people to hear them. I just... they don't sound like me. They sound too much like _me_. I can't imagine people.. knowing that. It's too much."

"I get it... They're really good though."

"Wilbur?"

"Yeah?''

"Would you?"

"Would I what?"

"Release them? Please?"

**Author's Note:**

> HAHA so yeah this is a vent fic. Hope you enjoyed or something lol
> 
> also this was pure stream of consciousness for like two hours with minimal editing. If you see typos no you don't. If you noticed the timeline makes zero sense no you didn't :D


End file.
